Heyyyy everyone!!!
Maadhav back again, writing this from what I can only describe as the eye of the storm. You know that part in movies where everything goes quiet right before absolute chaos? That’s where we are right now.
All four courses are simultaneously wrapping up, which apparently means giving us ALL THE WORK at the exact same time.
Coincidence? I think not. Conspiracy? Absolutely.
The State of Play
We’re in that weird limbo period where some things are finished, some things are due tomorrow, and some things are lurking in the near future like academic jump scares. Let me break down the current battlefield.
MECHENG 236: Mission Accomplished (Sort Of)
Remember that phone case design I kept mentioning? Well, plot twist, we’re actually done with the major project now, but the project wasn’t a phone case anymore. We ended up designing a gear reducer system for a conveyor belt.
The brief: take a motor that’s spinning way too fast and slow it down enough to make a conveyor belt move at a reasonable speed. Sounds simple? HAH.
What we actually had to figure out:
- Gear ratios that would actually achieve the speed reduction we needed
- How to prevent the gears from literally destroying themselves under load
- Material selection (because apparently not every metal is created equal)
- Manufacturing considerations (turns out “just make it” isn’t valid engineering documentation)
- Assembly constraints (gears need to actually fit together, who knew)
The CAD work for this was intense. Getting all the gears to mesh properly while maintaining structural integrity and keeping everything manufacturable took SOOO many iterations. There were days when Inventor and I were in a full-on argument about whether my assembly constraints made any sense.
But we got it done. Submitted. Finished. That project is in the past now.
…which means I can focus ALL my anxiety on everything else. Great.
MECHENG 222: The Project That Won’t Quit
So while MECHENG 236 wrapped up, dynamics decided we needed MORE PROJECT WORK because apparently we were having too much fun.
Project B is this beast of an assignment involving Simulink, which, if you don’t know, is basically MATLAB’s way of making you model dynamic systems visually. It’s actually pretty cool once you get past the learning curve, which is steep enough to need climbing gear.
The dynamics labs have been legitimately helpful for this, which is rare for labs, honestly. Usually, labs feel disconnected from the actual course content, but these ones actually taught us how to use Simulink without making us feel completely lost.
Current project status: Due soon. Very soon. Am I finished? Define “finished.”
I understand what I need to do. I’ve started doing it. Whether what I’m doing is CORRECT is a question I’m choosing not to think about until I have to.
ENGGEN 204: The SDG Report Saga
While my brain was busy with gears and Simulink, ENGGEN 204 casually reminded me that communication skills exist and we need to prove we have them.
The task: write a report on the UN Sustainable Development Goal, given to your group, and how engineering relates to it.
Our group’s topic: SDG 2 – Zero Hunger.
Here’s what I learned: there’s SO much engineering involved in food systems that I never thought about. Cold chain logistics, agricultural machinery, food processing equipment, and irrigation systems. Mechanical engineering touches all of it.
Writing the report is actually interesting, but let me tell you, switching your brain from “calculate gear stress” mode to “write coherent professional prose” mode is HARD. It’s like using completely different mental muscles.
The research was fascinating, though. Learning about how refrigeration systems keep food from spoiling during transport, or how precision agricultural equipment helps maximise crop yields, it’s the kind of real-world application that makes you remember why you chose engineering in the first place.
Report about to be submitted. Box near to being checked. Moving on.
MECHENG 211: The Calm Before The Exam Storm
Thermofluids is in this weird state where all the assignments are done. No more problem sets due. No more lab reports to write. Just… learning content and then the looming exam.
We’re covering the final topics now, which means my brain is simultaneously trying to learn NEW stuff while also starting to panic about reviewing EVERYTHING we’ve covered all semester.
Current topics include things I definitely should have paid more attention to earlier, but here we are. The good news is that without weekly assignments hanging over my head, I can actually focus on understanding rather than just completing tasks.
The bad news is that without weekly assignments, there’s nothing forcing me to keep up consistently, and my brain has decided this means “it’s fine, you can review later” which is a DANGEROUS game to play.
The Simulink Learning Experience
Can we talk about Simulink for a second? Because this tool is both amazing and incredibly frustrating.
On one hand, being able to visually model a dynamic system and watch it simulate in real-time is genuinely cool. You can see how changing parameters affects system behaviour immediately. It’s like having a virtual lab where you can test things without breaking actual equipment.
On the other hand, getting started with it feels like learning a new language where nobody told you the grammar rules. The dynamics labs walked us through it step by step, which helped, but there’s still this gap between “following a tutorial” and “independently creating your own model.”
My current relationship with Simulink: It’s complicated.
The dynamics project is teaching me that modelling real systems involves SO many decisions. What do you include? What can you simplify? How do you know if your model is actually representing reality or just generating pretty graphs that mean nothing?
These are the questions keeping me up at night. Well, that and the approaching deadline.
The Report Writing Experience (Engineer Edition)
Writing the SDG report was a different kind of challenge. Technical writing and academic report writing use different parts of your brain, and switching between them is legitimately difficult.
Research phase: Actually interesting! Learning about global food systems and mechanical engineering solutions was genuinely engaging.
Writing phase: Why are words so hard? I can calculate stress distributions but forming coherent paragraphs about sustainable agriculture is somehow more difficult.
Editing phase: Reading my own writing and realising I wrote three paragraphs that all say the same thing in different ways.
The final product turned out okay, I think. At least it was coherent and properly referenced. Whether it was GOOD is a question for the marker to decide while I pretend not to care.
But actually working through how mechanical engineering contributes to solving real-world problems like hunger, that part was valuable. It’s easy to get lost in calculations and forget that engineering is supposed to solve actual problems for actual people.
The Weird Grey Space We’re In
Right now we’re in this strange in-between state:
- Some courses are basically done (just exams left)
- Some courses still have active projects due
- The semester is almost over but not quite
- Exams are close enough to stress about but far enough away that studying feels premature
It’s like being in limbo, but with equations.
The thermofluids situation is particularly weird. Having finished all the assignments means I SHOULD be using this time to revise and consolidate my understanding. Am I doing that? Well, I’m doing it between working on the dynamics project and recovering from the gear reducer sprint.
Prioritisation during this phase is an art form. Or maybe just chaos with a schedule. Hard to tell.
Real Talk: The Energy Crisis
Let’s address the elephant in the room: I’m tired. We’re all tired. Not just physically tired, but that deep mental fatigue that comes from maintaining high cognitive load for weeks on end.
The gear reducer project took everything I had. Finishing that and immediately needing to shift focus to Simulink dynamics modelling and SDG reports? My brain is filing a formal complaint.
But here’s the thing, we’re almost there. The finish line is actually visible now. Not metaphorically-in-the-future visible, but like, you could reach out and touch it if you really stretched visible.
That’s both motivating and terrifying. Motivating because ALMOST DONE. Terrifying because we still have to actually GET there.
What’s Actually Helping
The Dynamics Labs
Seriously, these have been clutch. Having structured time to learn Simulink with help available makes such a difference compared to trying to figure it out alone at midnight.
Study Groups (The Informal Kind)
Not scheduled study sessions, but just the spontaneous “hey, do you understand this?” conversations in the engineering building. Sometimes the best explanations come from people who just figured it out themselves and remember what was confusing.
Breaking Things Into Small Pieces
The dynamics project feels massive, but breaking it into tiny steps makes it manageable. Today’s goal isn’t “finish the project,” it’s “model one subsystem.” Tomorrow can worry about tomorrow.
Accepting Imperfection
Nothing I submit will be perfect. The gear reducer design could always be more optimized. The SDG report could always be more comprehensive. The dynamics model could always be more detailed.
But at some point, you have to submit what you have and trust that it’s good enough. Perfectionism is the enemy of completion.
Looking At The Immediate Future
Next few weeks roadmap:
- Finish this dynamics project (priority one, deadline approaching)
- Keep up with final thermofluids content (can’t slack now)
- Start meaningful exam revision (define “meaningful”)
- Try to maintain basic human functioning (sleep, food, hygiene: the basics)
Is this ambitious? Maybe. Is it achievable? Ask me in two weeks.
The thermofluids exam is going to require serious revision. We’ve covered so much content this semester that even remembering what we covered is a challenge. Heat transfer, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics. It’s all blurring together into one massive “things that flow or transfer or both” category.
But that’s future Maadhav’s problem. Current Maadhav needs to focus on the present Maadhav’s problems, which are mainly this dynamics project.
For Anyone Following In These Footsteps
If you’re a future Part II mechanical engineering student reading this while deciding your path, here’s the honest truth about this stage of the semester:
It’s a lot. Multiple projects finishing at different times, exams approaching, the constant mental juggling of different courses and different types of work.
But it’s also weirdly satisfying? Seeing that gear reducer design come together and actually work as intended, that felt incredible. Understanding how to model dynamic systems in Simulink. That’s a genuinely useful skill. Writing about engineering’s role in solving world hunger, which connected abstract calculations to real meaning.
The workload is real, but so is the learning. You’re not just memorising equations. You’re developing actual engineering skills that matter.
Will you be tired? Absolutely. Will you question your choices? Probably weekly. Will you learn more than you thought possible? Without a doubt.
The Home Stretch Mentality
We’re in the final approach now. Everything is converging at once, which is by design apparently. Engineering programs like to test whether you can handle multiple complex tasks simultaneously while maintaining quality.
Fun? Not always. Educational? Definitely. Character building? That’s what they tell us when we complain.
The gear reducer project is done. The SDG report is submitted. The dynamics project is in progress. Thermofluids revision is pending. Exams are approaching. One thing at a time. One day at a time. One equation at a time.
We’ve made it this far. The finish line is right there. Time to dig deep and bring it home. Now excuse me while I go convince Simulink that my model makes sense and definitely shouldn’t throw error messages every five seconds.
Stay focused, stay caffeinated, and remember: everyone else is also hanging on by a thread. We’re all in this together.
Your exhausted-but-determined, project-juggling, almost-there engineer,
Maadhav
P.S. If anyone knows the secret to making Simulink cooperate on the first try, I’m all ears. Please. I’m begging.